Jeremy Hunsinger's homepage and blog

Francis Wheen | Top 10s | Guardian Unlimited Books

Francis Wheen | Top 10s | Guardian Unlimited Books:
2. The market is rationalFinancial sophisticates in the 21st century smile at the madness of the South Sea Bubble or the absurdity of the Dutch tulip craze. Yet only a few years ago they scrambled and jostled to buy shares in dotcom companies which had no earnings at all nor any prospect of ever turning a profit. To justify this apparent insanity, they maintained that such a revolutionary business as the internet required a new business model in which balance sheets were irrelevant. In short, they thought they had repealed the laws of financial gravity – until they came crashing down to earth.